


All Hope

by afterandalasia



Category: Supernatural, Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Character Death Fix, Crossover, Ellen Harvelle Lives, Episode: s05e10 Abandon All Hope..., Fix-It, Gen, Hellhounds, Injury, Jo Harvelle Lives, Leah Clearwater Saves the Day, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 05:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16634093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: No matter what the Winchesters say, no matter whatJosays, Ellen is going to try to save her. Rig the bomb and run; it's as simple as that.Only it isn't her that takes out the hellhounds on her trail.





	All Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea in the back of my mind, like, forever, but I didn't manage to get it down until this round of rewatching Supernatural.
> 
> Going with the book timeline, which puts the Twilight Series as happening in 2005-6; Leah has established herself as something of a force to be reckoned with at this point.

Here’s the thing: she’s a mother.

And Ellen can’t just let her daughter die.

While Sam and Dean aren’t looking, she rigs a timer. Fumbled together from a phone and half-gone memories of bomb-making, but Jo would never let her do this, and the boys would try to help her. They still need to go, to fight, but she has to take this chance to get her daughter out of here.

She waits for the boys to leave, sets the explosion, trusts that the reek of Jo’s blood and guts all across the floor will draw the hellhounds in, and _runs_.

 

 

 

She’s still running even behind the wheel of the car, pedal to the metal with the snarls of the hellhounds ringing in her ears. She can see the ground tear up beneath they feet as they pursue her, and all that she can think is that _at least if they’re after her, they aren’t after Sam and Dean_.

Being a hunter has taught her how to drive better than an F1 professional. Her knuckles turn white on the wheel, and Jo is unconscious and still bleeding on the seat beside her, but it always pays to know where the nearest hospital is.

Lucifer is busy. If she can reach the hospital, she thinks she stands a chance. Too many people, too much mess to clean up. Or that demon bitch will realise that she’s sent her dogs the wrong way, and refocus her attention on the Winchesters.

For once, it might just be helpful that the Winchesters are the special ones.

She tears down the narrow roads in top gear, trees whipping past. The empty roads are in their favour, and Ellen just concentrates on breathing deep and driving hard. The world narrows down to their roaring engine and the snarling of the hellhounds behind them, tunnel vision at its tightest.

Then something explodes out of the woods, with a roar and a splatter of red-black blood, and then the hellhounds are _screaming_ and Ellen isn’t even sure what’s happening but she’ll be damned if she’s sticking around to find out.

She watches in her rear view mirror for as long as she dares. For a split second, she’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like a huge grey wolf.

 

 

 

You learn early on in the hunting business to always carry fake ID. She spins the nurses some story about a wolf attack, confirms that Jo has her rabies shots up to date, and only starts to feel the world fall away when they’re wheeling Jo into surgery and there’s nothing more that she can do.

She walks on shaking legs back out to the car, because if she stops for a moment then she thinks that she might collapse. There is still blood smeared across the paintwork, a mocking handprint on the side.

She’s not yet even told Bobby that they’re alive. The boys are gonna be furious at her for lying, relieved that they made it out.

Jo’s going to live. She doesn’t care if she has to meddle with magic to make it happen, but she’ll try the doctors first. They’ve done pretty damn well so far.

Tears threaten in her eyes, but she blinks them away forcefully. No time for that crap. She searches for her phone for too damn long before realising that she used it to make the bomb. She runs a hand through her hair, cursing distractedly, then looks down to see blood drying and flaking on her hands.

She hasn’t smoked, not properly, in over twenty years. But it seems appropriate now to drag one out from the battered box in the driver’s side pocket of the car, to light it with hands that are shaking furiously but can still always make a lighter catch the first time. Another hunter’s skill that wouldn’t mean a damn thing to the rest of the world.

The smoke tastes bitter, but at least it takes the smell of blood out of her mouth.

“Hey.”

She whirls at the voice, hand going for a knife that isn’t there. The cigarette falls immediately from her fingers as her eyes fix on the young woman in front of her. A Native American girl, lean-muscled, not visibly armed but with a dangerous, predator’s grace about her.

“What do you want?” says Ellen.

The girl’s chin tilts up, and she plants one hand on her hip. “My name’s Leah. Why did you have hellhounds on your tail?”

The spinning world sharpens down to a point, and Ellen’s breath catches in her throat. “What the hell do you know?” she says, low and almost growled.

The girl glances around, then steps closer. Close enough to lower her voice, Ellen imagines, but within the range of a fight, as well. Trust or threat, Ellen isn’t even sure.

“I know that hellhounds rarely get seen on Earth,” the girl says. “But I know you had six on your trail, and they fought hard to get to you even as I was taking them apart. So what did you do to get them after you?”

“You a hunter?”

“Of a sort.”

“That ain’t an answer.”

“I hunted those hellhounds,” says the girl, and perhaps that should be enough of an answer. But you don’t hunt for as long as Ellen hunted without knowing that sometimes things that go bump in the night hunt each other, and it still doesn’t settle the roiling in her stomach. “Hunted plenty of other things as well.”

Ellen’s heart is racing in her chest like she has run a mile, but she knows that a good half of it is exhaustion. “So why not just answer yes?”

Hell, they must look ridiculous. Squaring off in the middle of a parking lot on a bleak cloudy craphole of a day, beside a rusty, bloody truck. The girl is wearing a wifebeater and jeans and goddamn sandals, messy hair and dirty hands, and Ellen knows that _she_ looks a damn sight worse.

The woman tilts her head just a fraction, still with half a challenge in her eyes. “You saw me take them down. I’ve had to escape a few hunters myself.”

A huge grey wolf, barrelling through the trees. “Skinwalker?” Ellen guesses.

“We prefer shapeshifter. Lawatsákil, if you must.”

Ellen’s not heard of them, but it sounds like it might be a Native language, and doubtless there are creatures with small populations that Ellen hasn’t come across or heard of. The girl isn’t trying to start a fight, and right now that’s more than Ellen can say of plenty of humans she’s come across.

“Thanks,” she says finally, knowing that it’s belated. But the girl seems to understand, from the way that she nods. “I’m… I’m Ellen.”

“Leah Clearwater,” the girl says, and Ellen gets the sense that there’s pride in her name, as well. A whole story there that Ellen doesn’t know. Leah folds her arms across her chest. “Lawatsákil.”

“Ellen Harvelle. Hunter. And as to your question,” she bends down and picks up the cigarette again. It’s still burning, but it’s cold against her lips as she takes another drag. “Me and the others, we went after Lucifer. Turns out that’s enough to get hellhounds sicced on you.”

Leah’s eyebrows rise sharply. “Lucifer?”

“Oh yeah.” Another drag. It burns in her throat, matching the burning in her eyes, and at least gives her something to focus on. “Thought most of the hunting community had heard about the apocalypse by now.”

“Like I said, I’m not really part of the hunting community.”

Four hunters in Carthage, and all that they could do was run. And this Leah Clearwater took out six damn hellhounds by herself.

Sounds like someone they could use on their side.

Ellen cradles her elbow, hoping that it doesn’t show how much she’s shaking. Hoping that she hasn’t turned too pale beneath her daughter’s blood on her face. “Sounds like you could use some catching up. My daughter’s still in surgery–”

“I’m sorry.”

“–not like it was your doing,” she says, without missing a damn beat, because you don’t run a bar without learning people. “And I know I ain’t gonna be getting any rest until she’s out. So if you want to keep me talking, now’s the damn time. Bobby’s gonna kick my ass anyway once this is over and I let him know we made it out.” Perhaps that’s too much, as Leah begins to frown, and the hysterical urge to laugh rises in Ellen’s chest. She tamps it down, hard.

Leah nods, slowly, but her eyes are sharp and Ellen gets the sense that her brain is moving damn fast. “If you’re offering, I’ll take it.”

There’s a first aid kit in the car. There hadn’t been time for it before, and only now does Ellen manage to think clearly enough to remember it. Her own palms are scraped to hell from putting together those nails and glass. “Let me clean up first, then you might want to take a seat. I’ll fill you in, long as you swear to tell me how it is you took down six hellhounds.”

This time, there’s a twitch of a smile at the corner of Leah’s mouth. There’s not much humour in it, but there’s the sort of give-em-hell hope that Ellen recognises from hunters, as well. She returns it in kind.

“That I can do.”


End file.
